If every customer leaves the new Jax Home and Ranch store in Lafayette as happy as 7-year-old Maya Schmidt did Monday, Nov. 19, the store's second Lafayette location is poised for a prosperous run.

Maya pranced out the doors of Jax on Monday wearing a big smile and a shiny new pair of black cowgirl boots -- the result of a special trip from Boulder in search of new school footwear for the fall season.

"I outgrew my old ones," Maya said, kicking up her heels. "It was exciting to see all the boots."

The new Jax site, at 400 W. South Boulder Road, has yet to install signage on the curb or storefront, but that hasn't stopped customers from finding the store via word of mouth since its soft opening on Saturday, Nov. 17.

"We heard this was the place to come for boots," said Alison Church of Boulder, who brought Maya to Jax on Monday. "And (Maya) thought these were perfect."

Jax, which won't host a grand opening for its new store until the farm and home improvement seasons hit full swing again in the spring, attempted to sneak its doors open over the weekend with a "very soft" opening, but customer traffic ramped up quickly as word got out.

"We're not advertising until Black Friday, but people are finding us," said Jax operations manager Mike Music. "Our signs won't even be up until the end of the week. We'll have an LED board to go along with the sign, too, and that won't be ready for a while. Right now, a lot of our traffic is just referral from the other store."

Jax first landed in Lafayette in 2010, taking over the highly visible former Ace Hardware building at 900 U.S. Highway 287 that sat vacant after Ace jumped ship in 2009. At just under 38,000 square feet, the Highway 287 site was too cramped for the greater vision Jax owner Jim Quinlan had for Lafayette, though the original Lafayette location has been "consistently exceeding the plan for that site," Quinlan said.

The second location -- the former home of Flatirons Community Church and prior to that Country General store -- adds 45,000 square feet, more than doubling Jax's overall Lafayette footprint.

Jax customers are already excited about the expansion.

"This place has been a incredible blessing after ACE left town," said Lafayette resident Paul French, who visited the new Jax store on Monday. "When I needed nuts and bolts, or tools, I went to ACE or Harbor Freight (in Westminster). Now I'll just come here."

The new store will stock hardware, paint, pet and equine supplies, ranching and agricultural equipment, automotive, lawn and garden, power equipment, western and work apparel, and boots.

The original Lafayette store will retain and expand the camping, outdoor apparel, fishing, hunting, military surplus, gourmet cooking and outdoor living departments while also adding athletics and team sports gear to the mix.

Despite their distinct new identities, the two store sites will retain continuity, Music said.

"The (employee) radios work from here to there, so we're always in contact," Music said. "And we'll be running things back and forth for people or sending people back and forth between stores."

As Jax's southernmost store in Colorado, the original Lafayette location already draws regional consumers from Louisville, Erie, Broomfield, Longmont and Boulder, Music said. He anticipates the store's reach will only grow following the expansion.

"Our goal here is not to have someone be able to come in and build a house, but to be able to come in and get whatever you need to finish any project," Music said. "This (expansion) will allow us to broaden the scope of the other store, too."

Jax's opening of the second Lafayette store this week met Quinlan's original goal of a Thanksgiving opening date. Both Lafayette Jax sites will offer coupons to the first 100 customers through the door on Black Friday, with discounts ranging from 5 percent to 50 percent. The stores will open early at 7:30 a.m.

Jax purchased the entire Plaza Lafayette shopping center that the second store now anchors, and is still seeking tenants for three properties within the center. Quinlan said earlier this year he's looking forward to positioning Jax to lead a "turnaround" of the shopping center.

With the Jax Home and Ranch store fully moved in, Music said he anticipates interest in the plaza will pick up.

"You have an anchor now that's going to bring in 500 to 700 people a day through the front door, and that's a conservative estimate," Music said. "We're making a lot of improvements not just to this building but to the area."

Through its expansion, Jax already brought 17 new jobs to Lafayette and plans to add another five to 10 before it's done. Once fully staffed, Jax will have approximately 75 employees between its two Lafayette stores.